The
Profilers had it all wrong. They fell all over themselves to get on
cable TV as experts to tell the world about the latest serial killer.
He was a young male unable to establish relationships with others. He
was hidden behind the anonymity of a family or constantly on the
move. He fantasized before an encounter with a victim and took away
souvenirs to dream about it later. As a child he was neglected by
his mother, he was cruel to animals, he wet the bed, and he started
fires. What drivel!

The
small town in which the Old Lady lived had suffered a series of
unsolved murders. All of the victims were elderly. Police doubted
that the victims knew each other, but just before disappearing, each
one had visited the Senior Center to collect a box of food
commodities which featured a two pound block of cheese. All of the
victims had eventually been found lying by the side of heavily
forested roads. In every case, a gunshot wound to the head was the
cause of death. The cheese boxes were nowhere to be found. Authorities
were on the hunt for the "Cheese Box Killer"

In
fact, the Old Lady was the killer. This explained why the victims
were elderly--quite simply a case of her being able to subdue them.
There had been younger ones in earlier days for she had been killing
for more than forty years. Without notes it was difficult to
remember them all, but she thought the body count was probably 58. She
had never been questioned by the police, never been a suspect,
nor what they called today a "person of interest". It was
her life's work and she was very, very good at it.

The
ache in her gut started when she was 16 years old. A strange desire
to kill people kept flooding her thoughts. She wanted to become a
serial killer more prolific and clever than the Nut Jobs who left
clues behind and spent the rest of their lives in prison. It did not
cross her mind that this behavior was abnormal or that she herself
would be considered "nuts".

The
next evening she had borrowed her Dad's car and driven to a nearby
lake. A few minutes later, a drunk staggered up to the vehicle,
talking too much, repeating himself over and over. She struck him on
the head with a tire iron, using all of the force she could muster. He
dropped immediately and lay still. On the way home she felt a
warm sense of power. That night she slept like a baby.

She
killed regularly and it felt good. During the next seven years the
authorities searched for the "Tire Iron Killer" with
stepped up patrols and sophisticated forensics. They hinted that
tips would soon lead them to the killer, but in fact they had
nothing. She knew that to continue to escape detection she would
have to change her techniques.

With
her next paycheck, she purchased a tent, a propane torch and a
backpack. She had always loved to camp so she began spending
weekends at campgrounds which featured hiking trails. All were
located at least 50 miles from home. Hiking deep into the woods and
making certain that she was alone, she pitched the tent and used the
torch to build a roaring campfire. Someone always came along,
attracted by the light. The tire iron continued to do its work, but
now she rolled the bodies into the fire to be consumed in the night.
She always slept well.

The
following day she monitored the campfire, boosting it with the torch
until it was unlikely that the ashes would give up the remnants of a
person. Cars left behind by the missing campers led police to
believe that they had been lost or injured in accidents. Search and
rescue dogs were brought to the areas but they turned up nothing.

After
more than a dozen had disappeared, a forest ranger brought cadaver
dogs onto the trails that had already been searched. When the
canines found human remains in the ashes of a campfire, it became
clear that the missing campers had been murdered. She became known
as the "Campfire Killer". It was time to change again.

Years
earlier when she lived in another state, she had purchased a hunting
rifle. It was considered a man's gun, but she was tall and strong,
so handling the weapon was not a problem. She had secreted the gun
from the beginning so that no one knew that she owned it.

Thus
began her longest killing period. During hunting season she would
enter the woods dressed in a hunter's jacket and hat, carrying the
rifle, her hunting license carefully folded in a pocket. When she
spotted a hunter alone, she shot him and walked away. All of the
deaths were believed to be accidents for she never used the same
woods twice. Much to her disappointment, the police had never
figured out that they should have been investigating a series of
murders.

After
her retirement, she began to slow down physically. When she applied
for a food commodities "cheese box", she noticed that there
were always some seniors struggling with their boxes because they had
no transportation. She offered them a ride home which was gratefully
accepted. Instead of taking them home, she drove to remote roads and
knocked them unconscious with the tire iron. When she found the
right ditch, she opened the passenger door and they rolled
cooperatively into the trenches. She terminated them with bullets to
the head from a pistol she had owned for years but which she had
never previously fired. As always, if she left behind any
footprints, they were from shoes purchased from the second hand
store. These shoes were two sizes larger than those she ordinarily
wore.

From
watching the news reports, she knew that the police would watch the
food distribution in the future, for it was their only clue. Now she
had to be content with picking up her own food supplies and going
home. Several times she saw them sitting there, parked outside the
Center on "Cheese Box" day, mature but not yet senior
citizens, rumpled suits, inquiring eyes. They never questioned her.

Now
she had only one regret. Though she had escaped detection for more
than forty years, she had a desire to be recognized by the world for
her stealth and her success. She had killed with impunity but the
fame that was certainly her due, had eluded her.

She
had taken note of the Unabomber, who killed for 16 years, only to be
tripped up by sending his "Manifesto" to the newspapers for
printing. His writing style had been recognized by a brother who
subsequently turned him in.

BTK
had killed for more than twenty years. "How many do I have to
kill before I get some recognition?", he had written to a
newspaper. Finally, he sent a computer disc to a reporter. The disc
was traced to the computer in a church where BTK was the President.

Both
men were in prison for life. Stupid jerks!

She
was not going to make these types of mistakes. Gaining her deserved
notoriety, but remaining unidentified and free, would require some
very careful planning. From the beginning the plan involved the
cheese boxes, for there were seven of them. In the first box, she
placed one of the oversize shoes. The shoe had been washed in hot
water and bleach, then handled with rubber gloves. The Old Lady knew
that the weather favored the fact that she had probably left
footprints behind at the murder scenes.

The
second box contained .357 Magnum shells, the kind she used in the
murders. Ballistics would match them to the murder slugs. She was
careful to wipe the shells to eliminate any fingerprints.

In
the third box she placed the carefully wiped State ID of one of the
murder victims. The ID had been left behind in a purse. The bag and
all of its other contents had been consumed in her woodstove.

The
fourth box contained a simple list which read: Tire Iron Killer,
Campsite Killer, Dead Hunters, Cheese Box Killer. Using a computer,
an alert cop would be able to access information from other states. If
he were clever enough, he would connect the dots. She was careful
not to leave any fingerprints on the list.

In
the fifth box she placed a bra which she had purchased at Walmart. She
left the price tags on so that the item would not be associated
with a victim. The idea was to show that the killer was female.

The
sixth box contained a new hunter's hat. It was not the one she had
actually worn because of possible DNA residue. It bothered her that
her hunter killings had never been properly evaluated.. She hoped
the hat would spur a review of the killings and a new conclusion that
they were murders,

Finally,
in the seventh box she placed one of the blocks of cheese.

This
would be her one and only chance. BTK had been induced to send more
communications when the newspapers who received his clues remained
silent. The trap had worked.

Very
early the following morning she placed her bag of cheese boxes in the
car for delivery. One by one she placed a box in the doorways of the
Post Office, the bank across the street, the newspaper office, the
Tax Assessor's (because it was next door to the Sheriff's Dept.), the
office supply store, the Courthouse and the feed store. Because
these facilities might have a camera focused on doorways, she had
dressed in a man's coat and hat, and covered her license plates with
thick brown mud.

That
afternoon, with some effort, the Old Lady dug a hole near her house
and buried the pistol, rifle, tire iron, and all of her ammunition. The
man's jacket, the hat, and the remaining oversize shoe had
already been burned in the woodstove. She remembered to hose down
the plates on her car.

She
looked forward with some anticipation to watching the local news that
evening, but the day's efforts had left her weary. She closed her
eyes for a relaxing nap, certain that she would awaken in time for
the broadcast.

She
did not awaken again.

Epilogue: It had
taken the local Task Force five days to put it together. They now knew
that the Cheese Box Killer was a life long serial
killer, surprisingly a woman. What began as a local story was
saturating national cable television, placing the small town on the
map. For the latest news release, all seven cheese boxes and their
contents were lined up on a table for everyone to see. The police
assured the public that the perpetrator would be arrested "shortly".